Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin's goal is to create a united Ireland based on social justice, equality and democratic accountability, an Ireland where access to health care is based on need rather than on wealth, place of residence, gender or any other social status. Our vision is of a seamless all-Ireland health service based on universal public provision that provides full equality of access and that is free at the point of access. Access to quality health care should be a right, not a privilege to be granted or withheld by government or bureaucracy or health investment speculators.

At first glance, the Government's White Paper on universal health insurance appears to go some distance along the road towards this vision. The Minister for Health states: "I believe that to achieve a fair and just society, we must have a universal, single-tier health service with access based on need, not income." He goes further and states that: "Over the last three years the Government has initiated a series of reforms in the health sector which are improving the nation's health, developing services, making efficient use of resources and forming the building blocks for the future system of universal health insurance." A Cheann Comhairle, if you ask me or any person in Sligo and Leitrim, or any of the hard-working front-line staff engaged in trying to deliver acute and non-acute health care services, we would wonder what nation the Minister has in mind when he sets out his reality and his vision. Let us look for a moment at the reforms in health care on the ground.

Our excellent breast cancer service was removed from Sligo General Hospital by the previous Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats Government and never reinstated, despite solemn promises to do so by this Government during the 2011 election campaign. Mammography equipment was recently spirited out of the hospital under the cover of darkness, with no public announcement. When this was rumbled and made public by a local Sinn Féin councillor, the HSE said it was going to be replaced by a newer machine, but only when a mammographer was recruited. We have been waiting three years for the recruitment of this mammographer for Sligo General Hospital.

I have no expectation that it will happen any time soon.

It was recently rumbled, but again not announced, that the HSE's hospital group for the west and north west is considering the very future of maternity services in Sligo Regional Hospital. Had I had to go to Galway or Letterkenny, one of my children would have been born on the side of the road. The HSE's response was that it was not helpful that what was a discussion document was leaked. Contemplating the future of maternity services in Sligo Regional Hospital should not even be considered.

Just last week it was rumbled, but again not publicly announced, that vulnerable people attending the day service at Our Lady's Hospital, Manorhamilton, were informed it was to be reduced from five days per week to three, and that a once-weekly session in Kiltyclogher was being terminated altogether. It is probably fair to speculate, in the absence of any information from HSE west, that other locations are targeted for similar reductions. It is rumoured that the proposal for Our Lady's Hospital and Kiltyclogher is being put on hold but people are naturally fearful that this is only to prevent public discontent in the run-in to the elections, and that the cuts will be implemented after 23 May.

Should staff in our hospitals and community facilities, home helps working with people lucky enough to have retained their services, very ill people who keep having their admission as inpatients to one of the national centres deferred, and ill people who have had their medical cards taken off them although their income was only marginally above the income guideline trust a Government that preaches reform but implements the most brutal cutbacks?

Actions speak louder than words. The actions of this Government in fundamentally undermining our already dysfunctional health system say more than this White Paper can. Government vision does not extend to the next generation; it does not even extend to the next election. Government vision on health care services extends only as far as the end of the financial year. This White Paper will not change that. What it might do - perhaps this is the real intent - is set up the public health care services for privatisation by a Government that abdicates, rather than delegates, responsibility for the delivery of those services.

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